When judgement goes East

at an intersection, when someone else has the right of way, this is what you get:

On our way home from church this last Sunday another driver whipped a left in front of me turning East onto the side street and I slammed right into her. The light turned yellow after I had already crossed into the intersection and she was cited for failing to yield. Don't make a left on a yellow people, I mean really.

The kids were in the car, but none of us sustained any major injuries. The girls and I have whiplash, I have a gnarly looking bruise about 6 inches long on my boob from my seat belt, chest contusions, blunt force trauma to my chest, I can't hold my head up for too long without it hurting, breathing hurts, sitting up hurts, pretty much moving hurts, I've had a headache since the accident and I'm scared to drive, but at least I'm alive to blog this story.

Moral of the story....no where you need to be is so important that having to wait 5 more minutes (at most) for another green light will kill you. Accidents like this however, could if you're not careful.

Finally a father's love.

Recently someone from the Cricut Message Board announced a RAK she was doing. In order to have a chance to win, you had to post about someone who inspires you. I chose to write about a man I met 18 months ago or so whom I now call Dad. I decided to include that story here.

After escaping my abusive marriage my children and I relocated. As you may or may not know, we are LDS (aka Mormon) and we always find a "ward family" to go to wherever we are. This time though, my current ward has redefined my definition of that phrase "ward family"....

Men get together in pairs called Home Teachers and are assigned to look after a few families....we LDS people really take care of our own and this helps the Bishop ensure everyone is doing ok. Well, my Home Teacher is a very busy man and not very reliable when it comes to OFFICIALLY being my Home Teacher (he is supposed to come with a monthly message and never does etc etc)...he is however a GEM of a man and I feel blessed to know him. Whenever I need to borrow a "Dad" for a father-daughter activity he's here, when we moved in and needed furniture put together he stayed till pretty late (after 10 probably) to put it all together, he's hung shelving, his family took us to church every week till we got our own car, etc etc....

So anyway....shortly after we arrived, he went out of town and asked his counselor (kind of like an assistant) to look after my family in his absence. It was then we met the man I now call my dad...

This man got VERY close to my family very quickly and soon my children came to me and asked "Do you think Brother ----- would mind if we called him Grandpa?" He didn't mind one bit and soon after I was calling him Dad.

Over the last 18 months or so, we've grown very very close. He is my "go to" guy for just about everything and I find myself inspired by his counsel and words ALLLLLL the time but no time more inspirational than this....

It was February...he was taking me and Mini 2 to therapy and I was sitting in the truck with him waiting my turn to visit our counselor. We were talking about some of the fear I was living with due to the circumstances surrounding my divorce and I was in tears. After a rather long preface to ensure he didn't hurt my feelings he said something I now hang on to daily "My dear, when you can learn to trust Heavenly Father as much as He trusts you, you will no longer need to live in fear." It was like a kidney punch directly into my heart....my life has never been the same since.

I am so grateful for this man....unfortunately circumstances such as they are he is unable to to do so, if he could though, he would TOTALLY adopt me. I have never known a father's love until I met this man...my own father is a complete waste of space...neither he or my brother have any respect for him....I've never met him, despite having talked to him several times, and he didn't even recognize my brother 4 or 5 years ago when our grandfather died and he came to the funeral...only thing great my bio father has done is give my brother and I the gift of each other....my mom is a bum magnet...her current fiance is a pedophile to help you get the idea, so none of the men in her life are or were role-model/father material....

And then, thanks to an unexpected move, I gained a father figure and FINALLY know what that "daddy-daughter" relationship is all about and I must say I am HOOKED. I am a Daddy's girl BIG TIME!

My Dad inspires me because he, too, sees more in me than I often see in myself and carefully and thoughtfully says and does things that allow my BEST self to shine! He ALWAYS makes me feel better when I'm bummed...often in just a statement or two and his love and support have been a key component of our surviving our situation. My girls want to marry men just like him, and my son wants to grow up to be the kind of man he is.

There is NO blood connection to us, but he is my dad and he will tell you himself if you ask him. His love for my family has changed our lives and his influence makes us better people and we are so lucky to have him.

Daddy who are you are makes a difference EACH and EVERY day of our lives and it is an honor and privilege to know you and have you in our lives. Thank you so much for all you do and all you are, your grandchildren and I love you more than you will EVER know!

OMG! What a week!

I had the distinct displeasure of dealing with BOTH baby daddy's in a 72 hour window plus or minus a few hours...yes I know that deserves a medal. You're welcome to make me one and send it to me k!!! My new friend Jen also said that in and of itself, is enough to merit a vacation a/o taking the rest of the week off so if any of you would like to come take care of the kids so I can take off, by all means let me know.

Baby Daddy 1, aka Sweetheart, is still SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO cute to me (even when he's grumpy) and I still have so much love for him but Forest says stupid is and stupid does and I realized this week that he's not good enough for me. All the love in the world can't compensate for not being worthy of me so buh bye...LOL! No, I wasn't mean to him at all...I can't hate I have a BEAUTIFUL baby girl to show for our relationship. Seeing him again (it has been 6 years since the last time I saw him) served as a reality check....he and I can only be together when the story begins happily once upon a time and ends happily ever after and I quit believing in fairy tales a long time ago.

Earlier this week, Mini 3 decided she wanted to speak to Ex Knight....I about peed myself. But, being the MAGNIFICENT mom that I am (I am magnificent right?!?!), I was able to indulge Mini 3...Mini 2 and 4 couldn't be left out though so they talked to Ex Knight too. By the time his phone finally cut off (we used all his prepaid minutes), it had been a TOTAL of FOUR PAINFUL hours we'd been on the phone. HOLY COW, the things we do for love. Monday taught me some things too though...

1. I'm WAY stronger than I think (yeah I know....you already knew that).
2. Being the better person is ALWAYS the better choice.
3. My Father in Heaven loves me and is ALWAYS there.
4. You catch more flies with honey.
5. Safety ROCKS!

Let me elaborate on lesson 4. If you have read any of my blog entries (and if you haven't that's ok too cuz really this blog is one of VERY few things I do that is just for me so there HA....just teasing smile k?!?!?)...Now, back to lesson 4. Ex Knight is scary, dangerous, unpredictable, and reliably unreliable. Talking to him, let alone even supervising his communications with the Minis is NOT something I wanted to do EVER. I could have lived the rest of my life QUITE nicely if I would have NEVER EVER EVER EVER had to hear his voice or see him again. The problem though, is he's still baby daddy #2 and I still have babies that love him...Mini 3 in particular. SIDEBAR: No it's not a problem that she loves him...it's a problem that because she loves him and I love her I am STUCK dealing with him.

I'm sure some of you may be wondering WHY ON EARTH (it's OK to wonder that, I did too), I let the Minis talk to him...there's one reason and one reason ONLY. He is their father, it's not about me, it's about them and if they can talk to him and stay safe in the process well then OK I guess....plus not only that, I want them to make their own decision on Ex Knight,. I don't want them to base how they feel about him based on how Mommy feels about him. I played SOOOOOOOOOOOOO nice....at one point he said something like "wow that's great I'm glad to hear they're doing so well." I WANTED to say well when they're not being emotionally and physically abused on a daily basis anymore, how the heck you 'spect them to be BUT....I was nice. No really, I know it's not my forte where he's concerned BUT I was. I figure the nicer I am, the more "amicable" I am, the sweeter I am and the more I let the kids talk to him as they desire the safer we actually are. I know weird concept right...but I figure as long as he is talking to the kids whenever the kids want (cuz he claims he doesn't want to "force" them to be in his life) to talk to him (and I can influence how often that is with relative ease) and knows they're doing better now than they EVER have maybe just maybe he won't ever feel the need to try and locate us. See...there ARE methods to my madness I promise!

Safety ROCKS...lesson five. Our safety is of utmost importance and I'm so grateful to have children that understand while it's ok to love Ex Knight and we've been commanded to forgive Ex Knight, we still have to remember that we have ABSOLUTELY NO way of knowing has he changed and is he safe for us to be around or not...the only way to know for sure is to subject ourselves to him and if we do that and he HASN'T changed...THEN what do we do? And, while Mini 3 is DEFINITELY bummed being a daddy's girl and all, all of the Mini's understand. Seriously HOW did I get such great kids?!?!?!

Don't worry though, it's not all bad. After all the stress and drama of baby daddy's 1 and 2 I took Thursday off to recover and more or less did a lot of nothing. Then Friday I went to my second favorite scrapbooking store for their make and take/customer event thingie or whatever YOU want to call it LOL! I was lucky enough to be one of the first 50 (we had a GINORMOUS line to wait in and I didn't think it would be me) so I got a FREE paper pack...well actually I got 4 cuz of the 5 of us only ONE wanted their paper...SHEESH have I not taught them that ALL paper is good?!?!? Anyway...shortly after I arrived back at home my Daddy calls and spoke words that sounded like music to my ears when he said "would you like to get rid of some kids for awhile?" WOULD I....ummmm what time do you want them...no really you can keep them for as LONG as you like lol! I got back in the car and took the Mini's to do some service with and for Grandpa and then came home to write this blog.

They get out of the car and run down his driveway screaming GRAN PAW GRAN PAW GRAN PAW and he throws his arms around them hugging them all and I drive away cheesing BIG time! I'm so blessed. How amazing it is to know people with so much love in their heart they can let my children and I in...not as friends, not as ward family but as FAMILY family! The whole way home (all of maybe 2 or 3 minutes) I just kept smiling thinking about how blessed my life is despite the struggle. I used to think happiness was over rated; I'm so pleased I was wrong. What a difference to be able to LIVE as opposed to simply existing!

Honestly, I don't think it could get much better than this....except maybe if I had my own scraproom the size of Texas and it was full of everything in the world I MIGHT want or need, and a GI-normous house I didn't have to pay for complete with a picket fence, dog (grimace), and mini van in the driveway, ocean front property somewhere warm and tropical with a jet constantly fueled and waiting to wisk me away whenever I want, and maybe......or maybe....

Hey, it doesn't hurt to dream does it? Actually, no, it doesn't and I'm dreaming again...amazing how much more vivid the dream looks when you start from a happy place to begin with isn't it?